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Fish Stories
By
HENRY ABBOTT
NEW YORK
1919
Copyright 1919
By
HENRY ABBOTT
Preface
AN ALLEGED humorist once proposed the
- query, "Are all fishermen liars, or do only-
liars go fishing?" This does not seem to me to be
funny. It is doubtless true that a cynical atti-
tude of suspicion and doubt is often exhibited
on the recital of a fishing exploit. I believe the
joke editors of magazines and newspapers are
responsible for the spread of the propaganda of
ridicule, skepticism and distrust of all fish yarns,
regardless of their source. The same fellows
have a day of reckoning ahead, for the circula-
tion of that ancient but still overworked mother-
in-law joke.
It is quite possible that some amateur fisher-
men, wishing to pose as experts, are guilty of
expanding the size or number of their catch,
upon reporting the same. But I cannot con-
ceive of a motive sufficient to induce one skilled
in handling the rod to lie about his fish. The
truth always sounds better and in the case of a
fish story, truth is often stranger than any fish
fiction.
In my own experience and observation I have
found that the more improbable a fish story
sounds the more likely it is to be true. The in-
3
credulous attitude of the average auditor, also,
is discouraging, and often reacts against him-
self, as thus some of the very best fish stories are
never told. To me, it seems a pity that through
these Huns of history many charming and in-
structive tales of adventure should be lost to
literature and to the unoffending part of the
public.
The fellows whose exploits are here set down,
seldom mention their fishing experiences. They
are not boastful, and never exaggerate. They
do not speak our language. I have, therefore,
undertaken to tell their fish stories for them.
H. A.
Fish Stories
by
Henry Abbott
BIGE had the oars and was gently
I and without a splash dipping
them into the water, while the
boat slowly glided along parallel to the
shore of the lake. We had been up
around the big island and were crossing
the bay at the mouth of Bald Mountain
Brook, which is the outlet of the pond
of that name, located in a bowl shaped
pocket on the shoulder of Bald Mountain
three miles away. I was in the stern
seat of the boat with a rod and was cast-
ing toward the shore, hoping to lure the
wily bass from his hiding place under
rocky ledge or lily pad, when I dis-
covered another and a rival fisherman.
He was operating with an aeroplane
directly over our heads and about two
5
The Osprey
hundred feet above the lake. Slowly
sailing in circles, with an occasional lazy-
flap of wings to maintain his altitude,
and at intervals uttering his sharp,
piercing, hunting cry, the osprey had a
distinct advantage over us, as with his
telescopic eye he could penetrate the
lake to its bottom and could distinctly
6
see everything animate and inanimate
in the water within his hunting circle.
He could thus, accurately, locate his
prey, while we could not see deeply into
the water and were always guessing.
We might make a hundred casts in as
many places, where no bass had been
for hours. So I reeled in my line, laid
the rod down in the boat and gave my
entire attention to watching the opera-
tions of the fish hawk.
For about ten minutes the aeroplane
fisher continued to rotate overhead;
then I observed that the circles were
smaller in diameter, and were descend-
ing in corkscrew curves, until from a
height of about fifty feet the body of the
bird shot straight down and struck the
water about twenty-five yards from our
boat with the blow of a spile driver's
hammer, throwing a fountain of spray
high into the air. For a few seconds
nothing was visible but troubled waters ;
7
then appeared flapping wings and the
floundering shining body of a big fish,
lashing the water into a foam, through
which it was difficult to see whether bird
or fish was on top. Suddenly, both
disappeared under water. Bige excit-
edly yelled, '*He's got his hooks into a
whale of a fish! He'll never let go!
He'll be drowned! Gosh!!'* Then he
rowed the boat nearer to the place of
battle. A few heart beats later, and
the fight was again on the surface.
Wings flapped mightily, fish wriggled
and twisted and again the water was
churned into foam. We now plainly
saw the two pairs of ice- tongs- talons of
the bird, firmly clamped on the body of
the pickerel, which exceeded in length
(from head to tail) about six inches, the
spread of wings from tip to tip. Wings
continued to pound air and water but
the big fish could not be lifted above
the surface. One more desperate pull
8
on the pickerers fin-shaped oars and the
bird went under water for the third time,
but with his wicked claws as firmly
clamped into the quivering body as ever.
Coming to the surface more quickly the
next time,- the osprey swung his head far
back, and" with his ugly hook shaped
beak struck the fish a mighty blow on
the back of the head. The pickerel
shivered, stiffened, and lay still.
The fight was over, but the panting
hawk still hung on to his victim.
Recovering his breath in a few min-
utes, the bird spread his wings and with
much flapping, laboriously towed the
dead fish along on the water across the
lake, where he dragged it up on a sand
beach. Here he sat for a long time,
resting. Then with his hooked beak he
carved up that pickerel for his stren-
uously acquired meal. I have many
times seen hawks catch fish, but on all
other occasions they have been able to
9
pick up the struggling fish and fly away
with it. This fellow hooked onto a fish
so big he could not lift it.
FOUR miles up the river and about
five miles eastward over Bear
Mountain, brought Bige and me to
''Hotel Palmer** on the shore of Sargent
Pond. One room and bath were avail-
able and we took both, the latter in
the pond.
We had just enough time to finish
supper before dark. The dishes had to
be washed by lantern light. In the
middle of the night we heard a 'Torky"
crawling over the roof, dragging his
heavy spine covered tail over the boards.
It sounded like the scraping of a stiflf
wire scratch brush. We heard him sniff
and knew that he was seeking the food
in our pack basket, which his sensitive
nose told him was somewhere near. We
10
s
2
o
X
hoped he would become discouraged and
go away, but he continued his explora-
tions over our heads a long time, inter-
fering with our efforts to sleep; so a
lantern was lighted and we went out
and threw sticks of wood and stones
at him.
The porcupine came down that roof
in the same manner that he comes down
a tree trunk, tail first, but the roof
boards were steep and slippery and his
toe nails would not stick as they do in
the rough bark of a tree, so he came
down hurriedly, landing with a thud on
a rotten log at the back of the cabin.
In the morning we discovered that a lot
of porcupine quills were sticking ver-
tically in the log so that a section of it
resembled an inverted scrubbing brush.
Hotel Palmer was built several years
ago, by George, Dave and Leslie. When
the law respecting camps on State lands
became effective, it was torn down. But
12
on the occasion of the porcupine inci-
dent, it was open for the reception of
guests by permission.
After breakfast, we found Dave*s boat
hidden in the bushes in the specified
place. During the day we hunted and
got several partridges which we pro-
posed to roast later. That evening after
supper, while Bige was cutting some fire-
wood, I took the boat and my rod and
went out on the pond to get some trout
for breakfast.
It was just as the sun was dropping
below the western hills, and there was
a gorgeous golden glow in the sky. The
breeze had dropped to a gentle zephyr
that hardly caused a ripple on the sur-
face of the water, so I allowed the boat
to slowly drift while I was casting. A
tree had fallen into the pond, and sitting
in its branches near the tree top, close
to the water and about fifty feet from
the shore, I discovered a coon. He,
13
also, was fishing, and I was curious to
learn just how he operated.
I soon found that the coon was not
without curiosity since he, just as eager-
ly, was watching my operations. As
the boat slowly approached the treetop
his sharp, beady eyes followed the move-
ment of my flies as the rod whipped
back and forth. It occured to me that
he might be seriously considering the
advisability of adopting a fly rod for
use in his fishing business.
Just as the boat passed the treetop
and but a few feet from it, a good sized
trout appeared at the surface and with
a swirl and slap of his tail grabbed one
of my flies and made off with it toward
the bottom. Instantly the coon became
very excited. His body appeared tense;
his ring-banded tail swished from side
to side; his feet nervously stepped up
and down on the tree branch, like a
crouching cat who sees a mouse ap-
14
The Coon
preaching, and his snapping eyes fol-
lowed the movement of my line as it
sawed through the water while the fish
rushed about, up and down, under the
boat and back again. And when the
trout made a jump above the surface
and shook himself, the coon seemed to
fairly dance with joy. Presently, the
15
fish, now completely exhausted, ap-
peared at the surface lying on his side,
while I was reeling in the line; when
the coon slipped into the water, grabbed
the fish in his mouth and swam ashore.
Climbing up the bank he turned, grinned
at me and went into the bushes with my
trout, now his trout, in his mouth and
about three feet of leader trailing behind.
BILL stood four feet three inches in
his stockings, and if Bill had ever
been on a scale, he would have tipped it
at seven pounds and six ounces. Bill's
body was about the size of a white
leghorn hen. He was mostly legs and
neck.
Abe Lincoln once expressed the opin-
ion that "a man's legs should be long
enough to reach the ground." Bill
was a wader by inclination and of ne-
cessity. Long legs were, therefore, re-
quired in his business, and having
16
begun life with a pair of long legs, Bill's
body was mounted, so to speak, on
stilts, high in the air, and he found it
necessary to grow a long neck so that
when he presented his bill it might
reach to the ground. This long neck
was ordinarily carried gracefully looped
back above his body in the form of a
letter S. On the rare occasions when
Bill straightened this crooked neck of
his, it shot out with the speed of an
electric spark, and he never was known
to miss the object aimed at.
At the upper end of Bill's long neck
his small head was secured, and from
it drooped an eight inch beak, which
opened and closed like a pair of tailor's
shears.
Bill wore a coat of the same color as
a French soldier's uniform and his fam-
ily name was Heron — Blue Heron. Bill
had cousins named Crane and he was
distantly related to a fellow who, with
17
Bill
queer family traditions, paraded under
the name of Stork.
Bill did not belong to the union; he
worked eighteen hours a day. His
operations, chiefly, were conducted in
a shallow bay where a brook emptied
into the lake, directly opposite our
cottage. There, Bill might be seen dur-
18
ing the season, in sunshine and in rain,
from long before sunrise until late at
night, standing in the shallow water
near shore in an attitude which he
copied from a Japanese fire screen; or
with Edwin Booth's majestic, tragedian
stage tread, slowly wading among the
pond lily pads and pickerel grass; lifting
high and projecting forward in long de-
liberate strides, one foot after another;
each step being carefully placed before
his weight was shifted.
Though an awkward appearing per-
son by himself, in a landscape Bill made
a picture of symmetry and beauty and
his march was the very poetry of motion.
Bill had very definite opinions con-
cerning boats. He knew that they were
generally occupied by human animals,
of whose intentions he was always sus-
picious. Either through experience or
inherited instinct, he seemed to know
exactly how far a shot-gun would carry.
19
Bige and I never had used one on him
and we seldom had a gun up our sleeve
while in a boat, but Bill never allowed
us to approach beyond the safety line.
Day after day through many seasons
Bill has stood and observed our boat
cross the lake. Without moving an
eyelash he would watch our approach
until the boat reached a certain definite
spot in the lake, when with slow flap of
wide spread wings he lifted his long legs,
trailing them far behind, while he flew
up the lake behind the island. As soon
as we had passed about our business,
Bill always returned and resumed his
job of fishing at the same old stand,
where he "watchfully waited" for some-
thing to turn up.
Bill was the most patient fisherman I
ever knew. Neither Mr. Job nor Wood-
row Wilson had anything on Bill. His
motto seemed to be, "all things come to
him who can afford to wait.''
20
Early in the season Mrs, Bill was busy
with household duties. With coarse
sticks, brush, mud and moss, in the
dead branches of a tall pine, she built
the family nest and laid the family eggs.
She also sat upon those eggs, with her
long, spindly legs hanging straight down-
ward, one on either side of the nest, as
one might sit upon a saddle suspended in
mid-air. When the brood of young
herons were hatched and could be left
alone, the mother also went fishing with
Bill, and toward the end of the season
the young birds were on the job with
mother and dad.
One day early in the season, Bige and
I were crossing the lake. It was about
ten o'clock. Bill had been watchfully
waiting at his old stand since 3:30 A. M.
One eye was now turned on the ap-
proaching boat, but the other eye con-
tinued its search of the waters for the
long delayed morning meal. About this
21
time, a yellow perch who also was hunt-
ing a breakfast, discovered a minnow
who had strayed into deep water far
from his home. Perchy immediately
gave chase, while the alarmed minnow
swiftly darted toward safety in his birth-
place under a clump of pickerel grass
near the shore. As they passed our
boat, the race was headed straight for
a pair of yellow legs a few rods away.
Ten seconds later, a snake like neck
uncoiled and straightened while an open-
ed pair of shears, with lightning speed
descended into the water. When they
lifted, the shears were closed across the
body of a half pound yellow perch. Bill
thus held his fish an instant, then tossed
it in the air and it descended head first
into his wide open mouth. A swelling
slowly moving downward marked the
passage through a long gullet into his
crop, of a breakfast that six and a half
hours Bill had been patiently fishing for.
22
"Sufferin* Maria!*' exclaimed Bige,
"What a lot of pleasure Bill had swallow-
ing that kicking, wriggling morsel of
food down half a yard of throat."
BIGE and I had been spending the
day at Moose Pond. Going over
early in the morning, we went up the
river about five miles, then followed the
tote-road around the western side of
the mountain to an abandoned lumber
camp near the pond. This road had not
been used for lumber operations for ten
years or more, but it still made a good
foot path, though to reach our destina-
tion it led us a long way around.
Returning late in the afternoon to
Buck Mountain Camp, where we were
then staying, we decided to go directly
over Moose Mountain, by a shorter
route, though the walking through the
lumbered section of the woods would
be more difficult. In the bottom of
23
the valley between the two mountains,
we crossed West Bay Brook. This
brook we had fished three or four miles
below, near where it emptied into Cedar
Lake, but in this section where the
stream was small, overgrown with alders
and covered with "slash" from the lum-
ber operations, we had not thought it
worth the effort.
There was an elbow in the brook at
the place where we crossed it, and a
large tree lying across the stream had
collected driftwood and formed a dam
above which was a deep pool about thir-
ty feet in diameter. Looking down from
the bridge which the west wind had made
for us to cross upon, we saw that the
pool was alive with trout. The bottom
seemed black with a solid army forma-
tion of fish, lying close together, sides
touching, heads up stream ; while schools
of smaller trout, disturbed by our pre-
sence, swiftly swam around the pool
24
reflecting the bright sunshine in brilli-
ant rainbow hues. The scene was one
to arrest the attention of the most cas-
ual observer, and Bige and I lingered
long upon the bridge watching the move-
ments of the hundreds of inhabitants
of this natural aquarium.
On the way back to camp we dis-
cussed the possibilities of fishing this
pool, deciding upon the best place of
approach, where one could be partially
concealed by bushes while casting. We
spent all of the following day marking
a trail down the mountain and across
the valley, about three miles, from camp
to the pool, cutting brush and clearing
out a path; then one day when the
weather conditions were favorable, Bige
went out to headquarters to bring in
some food supplies and I, with a fly rod,
went down over our new trail to catch
a few trout in a pool that had never been
fished.
26
Cautiously approaching, when near
the brook, I heard sounds of splashing
in the water. Creeping on hands and
knees, then slowly on stomach, I reach-
ed a position where, through the bushes,
the surface of the pool came into view,
when, crawling up the opposite bank,
I saw a long, slender, shiny, water soak-
ed, fur coated body which was sur-
mounted with a cat-like head; the legs
were so short they were invisible and
the body appeared to drag upon the
ground, while a tapering tail about a
foot long followed in the rear. The
Otter, including tail, was about three
feet long and he had a trout in his mouth
which he deposited on the ground and
immediately slid down the bank and
disappeared under the water. In less
than a minute he crawled up the bank
again with another fish in his mouth,
which was dropped by the first one and
the operation was repeated.
27
I do not know how long the otter had
been fishing when I arrived, but I watch-
ed him work fully fifteen minutes, when
he came to the surface without a fish.
He then deliberately surveyed his catch,
appearing to gloat over it, after which
he started down stream, tumbling in
and climbing out of the water as far
as he could be seen and I heard him
several minutes after he had gone out
of view.
Coming out of my cramped position
of concealment, I crossed over on the
fallen tree and saw scattered over the
opposite bank literally scores of trout,
large and small; some had their heads
bitten off, others were cut in half, all
were mutilated. Obviously, the otter
had eaten his fill and then had continued
to fish just for the joy of killing, like
some other trout-hogs in human form,
such as we all have met.
I went back to camp that night with-
28
PE""'*^-.r>SS?«s23s^-^
The Otter
out fish. We visited the pool later,
several times, but never got a rise and
never saw another trout in that hole.
The otter had made a perfect and com-
plete job of it. There was not left even
a pair of trout for seed.
29
A TWENTY inch pickerel of my
acquaintance, one day swallowed
his grandson. This was an exhibition
of bad judgment on the part of Grandad
Pickerel. The mere fact of killing his
near relative was not in itself repre-
hensible, since, if all pickerel were not
cannibals they would soon exterminate
from streams, ponds, and lakes, fishes
of all other species. But this particular
**pick*' was a husky youngster, and while
he might very properly have been bit-
ten in half, or have been chewed up
into small pieces, the older fish got him-
self into trouble when he swallowed the
kid whole.
A few hours after the occurence men-
tioned above, the elder pickerel, at one
end of a trolling line, climbed into our
boat; Bige, who had the other end of
the line, assisting him aboard.
"Sufferin' Mackerel! Well by Gosh!!
He*s got a rudder on both ends; he can
o
I
swim both ways without turning around,
like a ferry boat," commented Bige, as
we examined the floundering big fish,
which had the tail end of a smaller fish
protruding three inches beyond his snout,
while the head of the younger was in
the pit of the stomach of the elder
pickerel.
I have heard and read many tales,
illustrating the voracious appetite of
pickerel. Board man in his book,
''Lovers of the Woods,** tells how his
guide, George, while fishing in Long
Lake, lost his Waterbury watch over-
board. Several days later, he caught
a big pickerel and in dressing it found
his watch inside, still running. It seems
that a leather thong attached to the
watch was wrapped around the winding
crown and the other end of the thong
was looped over the fish*s lower jaw
and hooked onto his teeth, so that when-
ever the pickerel opened and closed his
32
mouth the watch was wound half a
turn, and thus was kept running.
Not being an eye-witness, my testi-
mony regarding this incident would not
be accepted in a court of law. However,
I have known pickerel to swallow frogs,
crawfish, mice, sunfish and yellow perch
with their prickly dorsal fins, young shell-
drakes and gulls, and even bull-heads
having three rigid horns with needle
points projecting at right angles to the
body, any one of which horns, it would
seem, might pierce the anatomy of the
pickerel. Somehow, they appear to get
away with all these things, and more.
The pickerel has a large mouth and a
multitude of teeth on both upper and
lower jaws, in the roof of his mouth,
also on tongue and palate. These teeth
are long and sharp and they slope in-
ward; some of them also bend down to
allow objects to pass into the throat,
but they effectually prevent ejecting
as
anything that has been swallowed. So,
Grandad Pickerel, if he had regrets
after swallowing a member of his own
family, found it impossible to throw
him up, as the Good Book says the
whale cast up Jonah.
Bige and I found we could not sepa-
rate the two fishes without first per-
forming a surgical operation. In doing
so, we also released a shiner which had
been swallowed with Bige's trolling hook
and was wedged in the throat alongside
the smaller pickerel. This was the most
amazing part of the incident, and proves
the gluttonous character of the pick-
erel and his complete inability to ap-
preciate the limits of his own capacity.
We found upon examination that the
process of digestion was operating, and
that the head of the smaller pickerel
was nearly dissolved in the stomach of
the larger fish. Another hour, and
grandson would have slipped down an
34
inch and the process of digestion would
have been repeated upon another section.
A white man cuts his fire wood the
proper length to use in his fireplace.
An Indian puts one end of a long branch
or sapling into his fire, and when it has
burned off, he moves the stick in and
burns off another section, thus con-
serving labor.
Our pickerel was digesting his food
Indian fashion, or, so to speak, on the
installment plan.
BIGE and I were hunting. I was
placed on a "runway" on the bank
of a small stream which was the outlet
of Minnow Pond. Bige had gone around
to the opposite side of the mountain
and planned to come up over the top
and follow the deer path which ran
down the mountain side, into and
through an old log-road which had not
been used for lumber operations for fif-
35
teen years, and which was now over-
grown with bushes and young spruce
and balsam trees. This log- road fol-
lowed the windings of the brook down
the valley to where it emptied into the
lake, and where the logs were dumped
into the water and floated down to the
mill.
Many years ago, when it was the
practice to hunt with dogs, the deer
acquired the habit of running to the
nearest water, where, by wading or
swimming they could throw the dogs
off the scent. Thus all deer trails or
run-ways lead, sooner or later, to a
stream, a pond or lake, where the deer
has a chance of evading pursuit of his
natural enemy. Now, while the game
laws forbid hunting deer with dogs, and
while dogs are not allowed to enter for-
ests inhabited by deer, yet the inherited
instinct of self-preservation of the latter
persists, and whenever alarmed by the
36
appearance of man, who in the mind of
a deer is still associated with his other
enemy — the dog, he immediately starts
down his trail to the nearest water.
It was Bige's hope to *'scare up'* a
deer on the other side of the mountain
and drive him down the run-way past
my watch ground, while it was my job
to shoot him as he passed by.
The fallen tree on which I sat was
on the bank of the brook and about ten
feet above the water, while in the oppo-
site direction, through an open space in
the bushes, I had a clear view of the run-
way about twenty yards distant.
Time passes slowly in the woods, when
one is waiting for something to turn up.
Also, it is essential that one sit quietly
and make very few false motions when
watching for a deer to approach. I had
been sitting, with rifle across knees, what
seemed a long time. The noises of the
woods which suddenly cease when one
37
walks through the forest, gradually re-
turned. A wood-pecker started up his
electric hammer and resumed the opera-
tion of drilling a deep hole into a pine
stub a few rods away. A blue- jay made
some sarcastic remarks about "Caleb"
and then began swinging on his gate
and creaking its rusty hinges. A red
squirrel overhead, made unintelligible,
but evidently derisive remarks about the
intrusion of strangers, and then pro-
ceeded to cut off spruce cones and tried
to drop them on my head. A king-
fisher flew up the brook and shook a
baby's tin rattle at me as he passed. An
old hen partridge down the log-road was
advising her children to **Quit! Quit!
Quit!" but her chicks, who were now
more than half grown, paid not the
slightest attention to her warning but
continued picking blue-berries just as
if there were no enemies within a hun-
dred miles. An owl on the limb of a tall
38
birch demanded, in stentorian voice, to
know "Who? Who? Who in "
Another fellow, way down the valley
responded that he "could!**, that he had
a chip on his shoulder and that if any
blanked owl knocked it off he "Would
Who? Who in are you anyhow?**
Thus the belligerents fought their battle
at long range with language, like many
other pugilists. A rabbit, who in another
month would throw off his brown vest
and put on his white winter overcoat,
went loping past, stopping occasionally
to nip off a wintergreen leaf. These, and
other sounds indicating various activi-
ties of wood folk, continued to divert
attention while two hours passed.
The "Yap, Yap,** of a red fox sounded
down the brook. A few minutes later
his voice was heard again, nearer; pres-
ently he came into view. He was wad-
ing in the shallow water of the brook,
eyes intently fixed upon the water, fol-
39
lowing a school of minnows. Stepping
high and cautiously, he, from time to
time, suddenly jabbed his muzzle into
the water and brought up a fish from
two to three inches long, which he chew-
ed and swallowed with seeming satis-
faction. When he missed, which hap-
pened often, he repeated his impatient
*'Yap, Yap'* and moved up stream
where was another bunch of minnows.
This was the first time I had ever seen
a fox fishing and I was intensely inter-
ested in his operations. About this time,
I heard a commotion in the bushes be-
hind me, and turned in time to see the
horns and white tail of a deer over the
tops of the bushes as he bounded along
down the runway. I heard him for a
full minute, still going strong down to-
ward the lake.
Five minutes later Bige appeared,
coming down the path gently demand-
ing, ''Why in time didn't you shoot
40
that deer? IVe been following him for
an hour. Fresh tracks all the way.
Heard him twice. He went right by
here, kicked up the dirt at every jump.
You won't get a better shot in ten years.
What in tunket were you doing anyhow?'*
'Who, me? Why-M was fishing.'*
^'TJUTTERMILK FALLS" is one
JL^ of the show places in our neck
of the woods. The guide books make
mention of it, and the tourist and "one
week boarder" see it first. Also, when
one tires of fishing, of mountain climb-
ing, of tramping, and is in need of some
new form of diversion, there is always
"somethin' doin' at the falls." In the
presence of their majestic beauty, and
in the roar of their falling, tumbling,
foaming waters, deer seem to lose their
natural timidity and often, in mid-day,
show themselves in the open to drink
of the waters at the foot of the falls and
41
to drink in the beauty of the picture.
In the course of my wanderings in the
forests, I have often observed, in spots
that are particularly wild or picturesque,
or that have an extensive outlook, evi-
dences that deer have stood there, per-
haps stamping or pawing the ground
for hours at a time, while they enjoyed
the view. Such evidence points to the
theory that wild deer not only have an
eye for the beautiful in nature, but that
they manifest good taste in their choice
of a picture.
One day two black bears were seen
feeding on the bank of the river just
above the falls. A family of beavers
have built a house about a hundred
yards below the falls and have made sev-
eral unsuccessful attempts to dam the
rapids, in which operations about an
acre of alder bushes have been cut and
dragged into position, only to be carried
down stream by the swift waters. This
42
is the only family of beavers I ever met
who are not good engineers.
There is also the typical tale of the
^*big trout — a perfect monster of a fish,*'
that lives in the deep pool under the
falls. Scores of people have "seen him;"
every guide and every fisherman who
has visited this region has tried to catch
the "wise old moss-back.*' Several times
he has been hooked, but the stories of
lost leaders and broken tackle that have
been told would fill a volume, and he
still lives.
Also, the falls are not without their
romance. Tradition, dating back to the
Indian occupation, perhaps a hundred
and fifty years ago, tells of a beautiful
Indian maiden who was wont to meet
her lover at midnight when the moon
was full, at a spot just above the falls.
Coming down the river in her birch-
bark canoe, the maiden would await
the arrival of the young warrior, who
43
was of another and a hostile tribe, liv-
ing the other side of the mountain.
When the moonlight shadow of the tall
pine fell upon a particular spot on the
big rock, the ardent lover arrived, guided
through the dark and trackless forest
by the roar of the falls, which could be
heard beyond the mountain top.
Of course the chief, the girl's father,
objected to the attentions of this enemy
lover, as also did other and rival admir-
ers of her own tribe.
On a mid-summer night the lovers
parted, he to go on a mission to Mon-
treal, which then involved a long, diffi-
cult and dangerous tramp through the
wilderness. Both were pledged to meet
again at the falls at midnight of the
harvest-moon. As the shadow of the
September moon fell upon the midnight
mark on the big rock, the Indian maid
arrived in her canoe, but the lover came
not. Instead, appeared one of the rival
44
warriors of her own tribe, who told of
an ambush, of a poisoned arrow and of
a dead lover.
The heart-broken maid then drifted
out into midstream and with her canoe
passed over the falls and was killed on
the rocks below. Tradition goes on to
relate how, at midnight of every harvest
moon since that tragic event, the ghost
of the beautiful Indian maiden appears
in her birch bark canoe and sails over
Buttermilk Falls, disappearing in the
foaming waters at their foot.
For many years I have tried to per-
suade Bige to join me in keeping the
date with this ghost, but up to the pre-
sent writing it has never been conven-
ient.
Sitting, one day, at the foot of the
falls, I was studying the high-water
marks on the adjacent rocks, indicating
the immense volume of waters that pass
over the falls and down the rapids dur-
46
ing the freshets caused by melting snows
and spring rains, trying to imagine how
it might look on such occasions, when
a million logs, the cut of the lumbermen
during the previous winter, were let loose
and came crowding, climbing, jamming,
tumbling over one another down through
the ravine and over the brink with the
mighty rushing waters.
The ground about where I sat was
strewn with rocks, boulders and smaller
stones, all worn by the ceaseless action
of the waters, many of them smooth,
others seamed with strata of quartz,
granite or sandstone, some curiously
marked and grotesque in shape.
As I sat thus, meditating, one of these
curiously marked stones, about the size
and shape of one of those steel trench
hats worn by the * 'doughboys" in the
late war, which had been lying close to
the edge of the water and partly in it,
suddenly jumped up and appeared to
47
stand on four legs about six inches higher
than it had been lying. The legs seemed
to be stiff and the movement was like
the rising of a disappearing cannon be-
hind the walls of a fort. Instantly there
appeared a fifth leg or brace at the back
which pushed the rear edge of the trei^ch
hat upward and tilted it toward the
water, when a telescopic gun shot out
from under this curious fighting machine
and plunged into the water. An instant
later this telescopic gun lifted a small
trout out of the water, bit it in half, and
with two snaps swallowed it. The tele-
scope then collapsed, the gun-carriage
slowly settled back, the tail brace curled
up under the rear, the head was drawn
under the front of the shell, and the
turtle's eyes closed to a narrow slit.
Again he looked like the stones among
which he lay, but his trap was set for
another fish.
In a few minutes another young trout
48
strayed too close to the shore and the
operation was repeated. The manoeu-
ver, though awkward, was swift and
every time a fish was landed.
The turtle is a good swimmer and he
remains under water a long time. He
doubtless also catches fish while swim-
ming. This, however, was the first time
I saw him fishing from the shore.
SALMON RIVER is a swift flowing
stream having an average width of
fifty feet, narrowing as it passes through
gorges and having a number of wide,
deep pools in w^hich the larger trout
collect.
I have made diligent inquiry as to
the reason for this name, and have ar-
rived at the conclusion that it was called
Salmon River because there were never
any salmon in it, but there should be.
About three miles up stream, the bea-
vers have built a dam across it, backing
50
the water up through a swampy section
about a quarter of a mile, flooding both
banks of the river through the woods,
thus creating a fair sized artificial pond.
Bige and I decided that this would
be a good place to fish, but that it would
be difficult, if not impossible, to reach
the deep water of the channel without
a boat. So it was arranged that Bige
should take the basket containing food
and cooking utensils up over the tote-
road, leave it at the beaver dam, then
go on to Wolf Pond where we had left
one of our boats, and carry the boat
back through the woods to the dam
where I should meet him about three
hours later.
In order to make use of the time on
my hands, I put on my wading pants
and hob-nailed shoes and proceeded to
wade up stream, making a cast occa-
sionally where a likely spot appeared. It
was a wonderful morning. The weather
51
conditions were exactly right for such
an expedition. I passed many spots
that would have delighted the soul of
an artist. He, probably, would have
taken a week to cover the distance I
expected to travel in three hours.
I had gone more than half way to the
dam, had a few fish in my creel, and was
approaching an elbow in the stream.
A high point of land covered with bushes
shut off my view of a deep pool just
around the corner, in which I had many
times caught trout. As I came near
this bend in the river a most extra-
ordinary thing occured. I distinctly saw
a fish flying through the air over the
top of the clump of bushes on the point.
A flying fish is not an unheard-of thing,
indeed I have seen them several times,
but not in the mountains, not in these
woods, where there are fresh waters only.
Flying fish of the kind I know about are
met in the Sound and in bays near the
52
>
s
c:
o
S
CO
ho
c
ocean. Also, the fish I just then had
seen flying above the bushes, did not
have the extended wing-like fins of the
orthodox flyer. This fish was a trout.
I had seen enough of them to feel sure
of that. True, I had seen trout jump
out of the water, for a fly or to get up
over a waterfall ; but I never before saw
a trout climb fifteen or twenty feet into
the air, over the tops of bushes and
young trees and land on the bank.
This was surely a matter that requir-
ed explanation. An investigation was
necessary, and without hesitation I as-
sumed the role of sleuth. Carefully step-
ping out of the water, I sat on a rock
and took off my wading togs, then on
stockinged feet and on hands and knees
crept up the bank. Peering through the
bushes, I saw that since my last visit
a large birch tree had fallen across the
pool and that the trunk of this tree was
partly submerged. Sitting on this fallen
54
tree over the center of the pool was a
large black bear. Her back was toward
me, and she was in a stooping posture,
holding one fore paw down in the water.
I was just in time to see a sudden move-
ment of the submerged paw and to see
another trout, about twelve inches long,
go sailing through the air and fall behind
some bushes just beyond where I was
in hiding. Rustling and squealing
sounds coming from the direction in
which the fish had gone, indicated that
a pair of cubs were behind the bushes,
and that they were scrapping over pos-
session of the fish their mother had toss-
ed up to them. It was, perhaps, ten
minutes later I saw a third trout fly over
the bushes toward the cubs. About this
time the bear turned her head, sniffed
the air in my direction, and with a low
growl and a ''Whoof,'* started briskly
for shore, climbed the bank, collected the
two cubs and made off into the woods,
55
smashing brush and fallen limbs of trees,
occasionally pausing to send back, in
her own language, a remark indicating
her disapproval of the party who had
interrupted her fishing operations.
The mystery of the flying trout was
now solved, but a new conundrum was
presented to my enquiring mind ; name-
ly, how did the old lady catch them?
With what did the bear bait her hooks?
I have told the story to many guides
and woodsmen of my acquaintance, and
from them have sought an answer to
the question. Bige expressed the opin-
ion that the bear dug worms, wedged
them in between her toe-nails, and when
the fish nibbled the worms the bear
grabbed him. Frank referred to the
well known pungent odor of the bear,
especially of his feet, the tracks made by
which a dog can smell hours, or even
days after the bear has passed. He
said that fish are attracted by the odor.
56
Also that many years ago, he had caught
fish by putting oil of rhodium on the bait,
and that "fish could smell it clear across
the pond/* Frank admitted that this
method of fishing was not sportsman-
like and that he had discontinued the
practice. George said he had many
times watched trout in a pool rub their
sides against moss covered stones and
often settle down upon the moss and
rest there. He opined that they mistook
the fur on the bear's paw for a particu-
larly desirable variety of moss, and so
were caught.
At this point in my investigations, I
was reminded that a few years ago there
was conducted, in the columns of several
fishing and hunting magazines, a very
serious discussion of the question, *'Can
fish be caught by tickling?*' Many con-
tributors took part in this discussion.
There were advocates of both positive
and negative side of the question. My
57
old friend Hubbard, an expert fisherman,
of wide experience, assured me that he,
many years ago, had discarded the land-
ing net; that when he hooked a lake
trout, a bass or a ''musky,*' and had
played his fish until it was so exhausted
that it could be reeled in and led up
alongside the boat, it was his practice
to ''gently insert his hand in the water
under the fish and tickle it on the
the stomach, when the fish would settle
down in his hand and go to sleep, then
he would lift it into the boat."
This testimony took me back in mem-
ory to a time, many years ago, at a
little red school house on the hill, in
a New England country school district,
where my young ideas took their first
lessons in shooting. "Us fellers" then
looked upon boys of twelve and thirteen
years as the "big boys" of the school.
We still believed in Santa Claus, and
we knew that a bird could not be caught
68
without first '^putting salt on its tail.*'
A brook crossed the road at the foot of
the hill and ran down through farmer
Barnum's pasture. In this brook, dur-
ing the noon recess and after school had
closed for the day, with trousers rolled
up and with bare feet, we waded and
fished. We caught them with our hands,
and we kept them alive. Each boy had
his ''spring hole,** scooped out of the
sand near the edge of the stream, in
which he kept the fish caught. Of
course, whenever it rained, and the
water rose in the brook, these spring
holes were washed away and the fish
escaped. But when the waters sub-
sided, they had to be caught again.
Sometimes, we caught a chub as much
as four inches long; and on rare occa-
sions, when a ''horned dace, a five inch-
er** was secured, the boy who got him
was a hero. It was the firm conviction
of every boy in our gang, that, no matter
60
how securely a fish was cornered be-
tween the twa hands and behind and
under a sod or stone, he could not safely
be lifted out of the water without first
''tickling him on the belly."
Reverting to the suggestion made by
Bige. There would be no doubt as to
the bear's ability to dig worms. She is
an expert digger, carries her garden tools
with her. She has been known to dig
a hole under a stump or rock, six or
eight feet deep, in which she sleeps all
winter. I have, myself, seen a bear dig
wild turnips and have seen rotten sturnps
and logs torn to bits by their claws;
which was done in a hunt for grubs.
I therefore felt certain that if the bear
dug any worms she would not use them
for fish bait, but would herself eat them.
With a judicial attitude of mind, con-
sidering all the evidence submitted, in-
cluding my own early experience, I have
arrived at the conclusion that the trout
61 .
was first attracted by the odor of the
bear's paw, then rubbed against the soft
fur, when the bear wiggled her toes and
tickled the fish on his belly, whereupon
the trout settled down in the bear's
paw, went to sleep and was tossed up
on the shore to the waiting cubs.
62
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